Pallets are among the most widely used logistics assets worldwide, supporting over 80% of global trade flows and contributing approximately 5% of global shipping-related carbon emissions. Despite their ubiquity, environmental assessments of pallet systems remain fragmented, typically centered on individual materials, isolated life-cycle stages or single indicators, which limits comparability and policy relevance. As global freight activity expands and decarbonization pressures intensify, a system-level understanding of how pallet-related environmental burdens arise and how mitigation strategies perform across diverse contexts is urgently needed. This review develops a multi-layer interaction framework (MLIF) to synthesize cross-material and cross-regional evidence through four interacting structural determinants: material and manufacturing intensity, logistics topology and circulation geometry, repair-remanufacturing-recovery capacity, and regional energy-system and waste-infrastructure conditions. Rather than aggregating heterogeneous results, the framework reveals the mechanisms shaping environmental performance across the pallet life cycle. The synthesis shows that upstream production processes and logistics geometries often exert greater influence on life-cycle outcomes than material category alone. Widely promoted interventions, such as lifetime extension, recycled-content substitution and low-carbon energy use, deliver benefits only when aligned with enabling system conditions; misalignment can lead to burden shifting or diminished mitigation. By clarifying these interaction mechanisms and identifying persistent methodological limitations, this review provides a governance foundation for low-carbon and circular globally coherent logistics infrastructures.

A circular economy (CE) seeks to retain the value of materials in circulation for as long as possible, and then to add value to them when they become ‘wastes’ so that they continue to be useful. Ten circular economy strategies (the 10 ‘R’s) have been suggested through which policy makers can encourage a CE. This paper aims to estimate the value added to the UK economy by the activities that comprise these strategies, and also considers the overall contribution of CE strategies, policies and activities to the overall macroeconomy. Estimates of the values of each R-strategy are identified through a comprehensive search of mainly grey literature, while the projected maroeconomic impacts of moves towards a CE come from a review of mainly academic literature. The R-strategy estimates are partial because circular activities are not identified in a systematic or consistent manner, so that the estimates of the values of each R-strategy cannot be aggregated to get an overall estimate of their economic contribution. However, the estimates suggest that the value generated by circular activities in the UK amounts to tens of billions of pounds sterling and the provision of millions of jobs, as well as generating substantial social value. Macroeconomic estimates of the economic contribution of the circular economy vary greatly, but the great majority of the estimates suggest that circular economy activities generate economic growth, with the estimates in some cases being substantial. Overall, the estimates suggest that policy makers are justified in implementing circular economy policies for economic, as well as environmental and social reasons.

A group of minerals has emerged in recent years as critical to low-carbon energy and other technologies. The extraction and processing of these minerals will have to increase substantially if countries’ plans for transitioning away from fossil fuels are to be realised. This paper sets out the challenges posed by this projected expansion in mineral production, and how they need to be addressed if this expansion is to take place. One of the main challenges is the mobilisation of the necessary level of investment in the production of these minerals, which involves specific risks beyond the inherent risks of exploration and mine development, including uncertainty about future technological trajectories, the potential for conflict with host communities, the concentration of mineral processing in China, and extended and vulnerable supply chains. Risks of conflict can be reduced by ‘responsible mining’ that gives enhanced attention to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues raised by mining, and supply chains can be made more resilient, and the need for new mines reduced, by implementing circular economy strategies to keep mineral products in use for as long as possible. ‘Sustainable finance’ is an approach to investment with such considerations at its heart, but which may need a ‘green premium’ to be widely implemented. The paper explores all these issues in detail and ends with a series of recommendations for how the production of energy transition and other critical minerals can be secured at the required level in a sustainable and responsible way in the future.

Weak and strong sustainability represent two opposing ways of understanding sustainability. This is reflected in the metrics used to monitor both types of sustainability, where the former favours monetary aggregates of manufactured, human, and natural capital, while the latter favours biophysical indicators. A comparison of the outcomes of weak and strong sustainability metrics leads to conflicting messages between the two paradigms when assessing sustainability status and trends. Weak sustainability metrics downplay the relevance of environmental degradation, arguing that in most countries economic development is sustainable or close to being sustainable. In contrast, strong sustainability metrics argue that the world and the vast majority of nations are unsustainable. There are, however, possibilities for creating shared narratives in which the biophysical insights provided by strong sustainability metrics are complemented with those from weak sustainability metrics. From this, we also identify opportunities to move towards more meaningful sustainability narratives that combine both perspectives.

Global freight expansion has tripled pallet demand over the past three decades, and pallets now support over 80% of worldwide trade while contributing around 5% of global shipping CO2 emissions. In rapidly automating logistics system, rising pallet stocks combined with weak circular readiness are driving significant increases in virgin material use, waste, and emissions. To address these challenges, we develop deployment schemes for sharing systems and circular economy (CE) strategies at moderate and ambitious scales, and apply bottom-up, multi-objective optimization to evaluate material portfolios through 2060. Results indicate that moderate CE adoption could achieve 34-52% of sector-wide mitigation by 2060 compared to the baseline scenario, while ambitious transformation scenarios could enable early emission peaks and impact reductions approaching 95-97% relative to the baseline. However, scaling CE requires interim energy and water inputs for remanufacturing and hinges on interoperability and liability standards. These findings provide a sequenced and policyready roadmap for pallet system transformation and offer a transferable template for decarbonizing logistics globally.

This paper examines the determinants of successful energy subsidy reforms by synthesizing lessons from the literature and elaborating them through an analysis of an original dataset comprising 417 reform attempts and their outcomes. We synthesize six lessons that governments should follow for a successful outcome: (1) preparing a comprehensive strategy, (2) ensuring appropriate timing, (3) communicating effectively, (4) implementing reforms gradually, (5) launching compensatory measures, and (6) moving toward deregulated and depoliticized pricing. Our analysis both validates these lessons and highlights their nuances, showing, for example, that gasoline price hikes above 50% appear to double the occurrence of unsuccessful outcomes. The analysis also provides actionable guidance for policymakers. For example, we show how a failed first attempt makes future reform more challenging, and we discuss how a government can implement partial reversals in response to protests to keep part of the benefits of reform while demonstrating its willingness to compromise.JEL Classification: P18 Energy; Environment; Q41 Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices; Q48 Energy: Government Policy; H23 Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies.

Hydrogen has been promoted as a revolutionary fuel for 50 years, yet usage is confined to oil refining and fertilizer production. For hydrogen to advance global decarbonization, many barriers must be overcome. In this Perspective, we examine the challenges hydrogen faces from production to usage, assessing its environmental and economic credentials, controversies and uncertainties. We provide the evidence base for companies and governments to assess clean hydrogen’s current and potential future competitiveness. Fuel cell cars and space heating are among the least promising applications owing to rapid advances in direct electric alternatives. Hydrogen holds potential in industry, long-duration energy storage and long-haul transport, but its competitiveness depends on large-scale deployment yielding substantial cost reductions. Current production cost estimates range by a factor of five and suggest that targets for 2030 will be difficult to achieve, especially once costs for transport and storage are included. The climate impacts of hydrogen production are also uncertain, with production from electrolysis or methane gas with carbon capture potentially increasing system-wide or upstream emissions, alongside water scarcity and persistent organic pollution. Future research must resolve these uncertainties, with strategic focus on deploying hydrogen in priority areas where it is most competitive. Hydrogen has been proposed as a fuel for widespread use since the 1970s, but uptake has repeatedly fallen below projections, primarily due to high costs. This Perspective considers hydrogen’s potential in relation to rapidly improving competitor technologies, and outlines steps for prioritising roles for clean hydrogen within the energy transition.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aiming for global targets by 2030, are tracked by a monitoring framework comprising 231 environmental, social, and economic indicators. The framework provides data to assess whether, across countries, environmental policies are: (a) Addressing environmental pressures, (b) Linked to environmental improvements, and (c) Linked with social benefits delivered by healthy environments. While several studies have analyzed the implementation and impacts of the SDGs, there remains a critical research gap in assessing the linkage between environmental policies and their potential to deliver multiple ecological and social benefits. This study examines the efficacy of environmental policies and their implications for global environmental health and social wellbeing. We use a generalized linear modeling approach to test for correlations between SDG indicators. We show that some environmental policies, particularly protected areas and sustainable forest certification, are linked with environmental improvements, mainly in forest and water ecosystems. However, we find no evidence that environmental improvements are linked with positive social impacts. Finally, environmental pressures, including freshwater withdrawal, domestic material consumption, and tourism, are linked with environmental degradation. Environmental policy responses are generally increasing across countries. Despite this, the state of the environment globally continues to decline. Governments must focus on understanding why environmental policies have not been sufficient to reverse environmental decline, particularly concerning the pressures that continue to degrade the environment. To better track progress toward sustainable development, we recommend that the SDG monitoring framework is supplemented with additional indicators on the state of the environment.

The international trade is experiencing rapid growth worldwide. Pallets play an important role in protecting and transporting over 80 % of global trade, while also bring environmental implications. Currently, research on identifying the environmental impact reduction pathway for different types of pallets in the second-largest pallet holder, China, is lacking. This study aims to provide a comprehensive framework to improve the environmental performance of the pallet industry in China. The framework is composed of three scenarios which represent the pallet system as in China today, the establishment of a pallet sharing system and the adoption of circular economy (CE). The framework is validated by adopting life cycle assessment and scenario analysis. Results show that the Chinese pallet market can achieve a remarkable environmental impact reduction by 95.2 % and 97.3 %, respectively, by adopting the sharing system and CE strategies. Especially, carbon footprint can be reduced by 95 % (from 43.23 to 2.14 billion kg CO2) under the sharing system, and by 98.1 % (to 0.8 billion kg CO2) under the CE scenario. The sharing system reduces the impacts of freshwater consumption (FC) category by 93 % (from 284.81 million m3 to 19.40 million m3) and the impacts of terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE) category by 90 % (from 18.48 billion to 1.76 billion kg 1,4-DB eq). In the CE scenario, the impacts of FC drop by 94 % (to 16.38 million m3) and the impacts of TE decrease by 99 % (to 0.27 billion kg 1,4-DB eq) compared to the base case. The study recommends prioritising measures to enhance awareness and adoption of CE, focusing on addressing tonnage loss and developing robust infrastructure for efficient pallet management.

This paper assesses the environmental sustainability of Japan by applying the environmental sustainability gap (ESGAP) framework, which builds on the concepts of strong sustainability, critical natural capital, environmental functions, and science-based reference values. The assessment is carried out using two indices of environmental sustainability (Strong Environmental Sustainability Index (SESI) and Strong Environmental Sustainability Progress Index (SESPI)) that provide a snapshot and a trend perspective on environmental sustainability performance and on progress toward it. The results reveal that Japan has not experienced significant changes in terms of aggregate environmental sustainability throughout the 2011–2017 period, but this is primarily a consequence of the mutually offsetting movements of different indicators. The country performs best for the human health and other welfare indicators, but worst for the sink function indicators such as the per-capita CO 2 emissions and the eutrophication of fresh water. The indices also expose the main policy areas that Japan needs to strengthen to improve its environmental performance. They include issues such as tropospheric ozone pollution, which has long been discussed in scientific literature but never been a primal policy focus of the government until very recently.

The pursuit of sustainable development highlights the circular economy (CE) as a viable approach. Pallets, transporting over 80% of global trade, lack CE performance (CEP) evaluation, hindering sustainability efforts in logistics. This study develops a comprehensive framework comprising 17 indices across the pallet lifecycle to evaluate CEP in China, based on literature review, field studies, and integration of material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. Results reveal significant variation in CEP across pallet types. Wooden pallets generate substantial waste, with a high waste-to-weight ratio of 58.60%, due to inefficient processing. Plastic pallets exhibit high material efficiency (99.88%), but face environmental challenges due to non-renewable resources reliance. Steel pallets demonstrate exemplary waste management but are underutilised. Paper pallets need better durability and fly ash pallets have environmental concerns due to adjuvants. The proposed framework offers an effective tool for promoting sustainability in logistic carrier industries, with applicability extending beyond pallets.

Composite indicators are widely used to represent sustainability or its underlying dimensions. Nonetheless, an alignment between the multiple choices made during their construction and the underlying conceptual framework is often lacking. This reduces the relevance of the composite indicator.This paper provides an overview of the theoretical implications of the choices made during the construction of strong sustainability indices, particularly focusing on reflecting environmental sustainability and the limited substitution capacity between different types of capitals. The theoretical perspective is complemented through an uncertainty analysis of the Strong Environmental Sustainability Index and the Sustainable Human Development Index in which the quantitative implications of choices made in the indicator selection, normalisation, weighting and aggregation processes are assessed.The results show that different choices significantly affect country scores. Given the conceptual implications of these choices in relation to strong sustainability, we conclude that the choices made during the construction of a composite indicator need to be aligned with the underlying conceptual framework. In a context in which a growing number of composite indicators is produced every year, it becomes of utmost importance to make sure that those that percolate to the decision-making process monitor what they are intended to monitor.

Non-technical summary The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are at the core of the development agenda. Despite their wide adoption, it is still unclear the extent to which they can provide insights on environmental sustainability. The paper presents an assessment of the potential of the indicators used in the SDGs to track environmental sustainability. The results show that only a few SDG indicators describe the state of the environment, and those that do so, do not, generally, have science-based targets that describe whether environmental sustainability conditions are met. The latter aspect should be reinforced in framework that will replace the SDGs after 2030.Technical summary The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are at the core of the development agenda. Despite their wide adoption, it is still unclear whether they can be used to monitor environmental sustainability, if this is to be understood from a strong sustainability perspective. The paper presents an assessment of the adequacy of the indicator sets used by United Nations, Eurostat, OECD, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for strong sustainability monitoring. The results show that most environmental indicators do not have science-based environmental standards that reflect whether natural capital meets environmental sustainability conditions, thereby preventing their use as strong sustainability indicators. While meeting the SDGs would likely contribute to improving environmental performance, on their own they are not adequate to monitor progress toward it. Complementary scientifically grounded metrics are needed to track the underlying state of natural capital that provides non-substitutable functions. The strong sustainability dimension within the SDGs will need to be strengthened in post-2030 sustainable development monitoring framework.Social media summary The Sustainable Development Goals are insufficient to monitor environmental sustainability.

Many factors contribute to the success of energy subsidy reform. To better understand these factors, we review studies that drew lessons from past attempts at reform. We synthesize the lessons and then expound on them by reviewing our newly constructed database of over 3,000 news articles, capturing the context, details, and outcomes of over 400 energy subsidy reforms implemented worldwide from 1995 to 2022 across 44 countries.

This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

We model energy demand across five end-use sectors and 15 energy products in Saudi Arabia, generating comprehensive price and income elasticity estimates. Using the Structural Time Series Model, we demonstrate that the trends underlying energy demand are generally stochastic, underscoring the importance of using such models for estimating unbiased elasticities. Our estimates reveal that energy demand in Saudi Arabia is price inelastic in all cases and income inelastic in most cases, with industrial natural gas and electricity being the only exceptions. Nevertheless, we find extensive variation in the elasticities across sectors and energy products, highlighting the importance of using sector- and product-specific elasticity values and not assuming they are similar in the same country. We then use our estimated elasticities to conduct a welfare analysis of the energy price reforms implemented in 2016 and 2018. Our analysis reveals that the 2016 reform delivered a total annual welfare gain of 11.6 billion 2010 United States Dollars (USD) in 2016. Following the 2018 reform, the annual welfare gain increased to 17.0 billion 2010 USD in 2018. We also estimate the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions avoided between 2016 and 2018 due to energy price reform at 164 million tonnes.